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Academics fight colleges Stalinesque power grab

IT IS the clash of the cognoscenti: Ireland’s leading academics are squaring up for a fight with university heads over a “Stalinesque” reform programme for campuses.

The academics, who include Sean Barrett, a leading economist, and Gerard Casey, a philosopher, say the changes being pushed by university presidents will downgrade the humanities to the benefit of business.

The intellectuals, who include William Binchy and Gerard Hogan, professors of law, and Kieran Allen, a sociologist, argue that the reform programme at Trinity College Dublin (TCD), University College Dublin (UCD) and University College Cork (UCC) will concentrate control in a bureaucratic elite and lead to the closure of important faculties.

The college authorities insist the changes are necessary to bring Irish third-level education into line with “best international practice” and attract more funding from the private sector.